page_title: Mexico City
section_title: Metropolitan area
hierarchical_section_title: Mexico City / Politics / Metropolitan area
caption_attribution_description: Español: Mapa histórico del crecimiento de la ciudad de México Mapa del crecimiento de la ciudad de México, de 1930 a 2000.
context_page_description: Mexico City is the capital and largest city of Mexico and the most-populous city in North America. Mexico City is one of the most important cultural and financial centres in the world. It is located in the Valley of Mexico, a large valley in the high plateaus in the center of Mexico, at an altitude of 2,240 meters. The city has 16 subdivisions, formerly known as boroughs.
  The 2009 population for the city proper was approximately 8.84 million people, with a land area of 1,485 square kilometers. According to the most recent definition agreed upon by the federal and state governments, the population of Greater Mexico City is 21.3 million, which makes it the second largest metropolitan area of the Western Hemisphere, the eleventh-largest agglomeration, and the largest Spanish-speaking city in the world.
  Greater Mexico City has a GDP of $411 billion in 2011, making Greater Mexico City one of the most productive urban areas in the world. The city was responsible for generating 15.8% of Mexico's GDP, and the metropolitan area accounted for about 22% of total national GDP.
context_section_description: Greater Mexico City is formed by Mexico City, 60 municipalities from the State of Mexico and one from the state of Hidalgo. Greater Mexico City is the largest metropolitan area in Mexico and the area with the highest population density. As of 2009, 21,163,226 people live in this urban agglomeration, of which 8,841,916 live in Mexico City proper. In terms of population, the biggest municipalities that are part of Greater Mexico City (excluding Mexico City proper) are:
  Ecatepec de Morelos (pop. 1,658,806)
  Nezahualcóyotl (pop. 1,109,363)
  Naucalpan (pop. 833,782)
  Tlalnepantla de Baz (pop. 664,160)
  Chimalhuacán (pop. 602,079)
  Cuautitlán Izcalli (pop. 532,973)
  Atizapan de Zaragoza (pop. 489,775)
  Ixtapaluca (pop. 467,630)
  The above municipalities are located in the state of Mexico but are part of the Greater Mexico City area. Approximately 75% (10 million) of the state of México's population live in municipalities that are part of Greater Mexico City's conurbation.
  Greater Mexico City was the fastest growing metropolitan area in the country until the late 1980s. Since then, and through a policy of decentralization in order to reduce the environmental pollutants of the growing conurbation, the annual rate of growth of the agglomeration has decreased, and it is lower than that of the other four largest metropolitan areas (namely Greater Guadalajara, Greater Monterrey, Greater Puebla and Greater Toluca) even though it is still positive.
  The net migration rate of Mexico City proper from 1995 to 2000 was negative, which implies that residents are moving to the suburbs of the metropolitan area, or to other states of Mexico. In addition, some inner suburbs are losing population to outer suburbs, indicating the continuing expansion of Greater Mexico City.
caption: Growth of Mexico city's area from 1900 to 2000
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